France Free Abortion Bill: Lawmakers Vote To Fully Reimburse Procedure.
Tag: France
We love you, Jean Luc!
Mélenchon mania: viral pop video strikes a chord with French voters ... What's going on in France? They seem to be getting sick of the Fascists and the 2 soft French corporate parties, too. See Melenchon unites French hard left in presidential campaign. It's great to see Europeans uniting against the corporate austerity program. Now if we could only do the same in the US?!
Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb grow more ‘concerned’ in France
...Oh pity the Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumbs of the world! They are always trying to collaborate together so as that the world 'electorates' never will have any real voice in real matters, which are left ONLY for Big Business and Big Military interests to decide upon. But in France, the two Tweedles do now grow more concerned- Thousands Rally for Far-Left French Candidate. ...Pity the 1% when they cannot outright buy their selections. Their politics are so very 'delicate'...
Gun Fu vs Kung Fu, Martial Arts v Martial Law
And why Kung Fu or any other martial art comes out ahead. If you pick any one thing that's external to you, something that's not built into your body and mind as your means of self defense, you set up a cycle of dependence. With knives, staves, swords, and such it's the same story, only not as quick. With those you have to be trained to get enough proficiency to kill somebody. And the training actually makes you more proficient at fighting without reliance on the object. The Gun gives you a feeling of helplessness under a veneer of a power rush, you start to consider how it gives you one simple power, to kill. Not to defend, to kill. You begin to think of it as your only means of resolving great conflicts, then, quickly, as you descend into the mental Hell of slavery to an object, as your only means of resolving ANY conflicts. The Gun does your thinking for you, only, it's stupid. Literally without intellect. And why did you buy the Gun in the first place? Because you felt so afraid and inferior. "Self Defense" is the number one claim for "Why do you keep or carry a gun?" And, admit it, at least to yourself, YOU asked yourself that question. If you NEED Mr. Gun to defend yourself, what then will you do if you don't have Mr. Gun handy and something goes down? Most intentional homicides aren't done in self defense. The vast majority of unintended homicides are pure accidents, accidents happen all the time. I moved my bed last night and dropped the frame onto my foot. People die in swimming accidents, in fact Gun Fanatics like to point that out. A LOT. I'll go out on a stacistical limb here and suggest that probably most of the people who drowned last year weren't actually carrying a swimming pool around in their pockets nor were they basing their entire self defense or conflict resolution plans on being able to pull a swiming pool on somebody. Putting a gun in your hands, your car or your pocket (let's get the word-play out of the way here, a holster IS a pocket specially designed to hold only one thing) Being so afraid that you believe a gun is the only thing that can save your life, makes it more likely that you'll believe your life is in constant danger and more likely to try to stave off that danger through the use of The Gun. Likewise depending on Armies, a million or so guns, not even in YOUR hands, to "defend" you or more accurately, to force people in other countries to negotiate business deals on YOUR terms and against the best interests of Their People. Think not? Consider this: In Red China everybody is a de-facto member of the military either of the regular army or the militia. The admittedly Right Wing American estimate is that China has the ability to field two hundred million people within a day. Same
Iran had ‘preconditions’ for nuclear talks, Great Powers miffed..
Actually Baroness Ashton and other "diplomats" said they were "disappointed". Baroness Ashton led a delegation from France, Germany, Russia, the UK, US and China, at the two-day talks. The international team had proposed a new version of a plan to keep Iranian enrichment within civilian-grade levels by having it send uranium abroad to be processed. But Western diplomatic sources have spoken of anger and frustration over Iran's behavior at the talks. But of course... Arrogantly demanding that one's own nation be accorded the same Sovereign Rights as any other is a privilege accorded to the Great Powers. "Simply EVERYBODY knows THAT, Dah-link" So the Baroness is pissed. GOOD. The Royals got snubbed by Peasants. GOOD. Apparently, unilateral demands should only come from the Empire. Only, since World War One they've shied away from being called that. One of the reasons for the British Crown starting the war was the same with King George V as it was with Elizabeth II, Iranian oil for the Empire. And Iraqi. Only it was under Turkish control at the time, and had to be taken away from Turkish control by force of arms. Arms carried in the arms of Peasants who had to be conscripted or cajoled into doing Their Masters' bidding. So they invented a lie, of course. Happens all the time in Diplomatic Circles, as Wikileaks has recently revealed. Just like Gueen Bess 2 cheerily signing on to the BushBlairCheneyCo. lies about WMDs both in Iraq and Iran, King George V jumped at a chance to pit "his" Imperial Army against those of his cousins in a gigantic game of Risk where the pawns actually scream, bleed and die when gassed, shot or bombed. By telling the Suckers errr "Loyal Subjects Patriots that they, as subjects and property of an Emperor, were to fight Imperialism. "That small nations would have the same rights as the the Great Powers." What a crock of Lying Pig Shit. The Emperors made out like the murdering bandits they were then and still are today. The peasants filled millions of graves. Same as always.
How come Pottery Barn rules don’t apply to Haiti?
When Tony posted nearly three years ago (!) about how shocking conditions in Haiti had become, it was a magnet for people saying the starving kids pictures (from Medicins sans frontiers, internationally respected medical aid agency, just not so much here in America) were recycled pictures from Ethiopia 3, 2 and one decade ago. Then when that was refuted, and before they raised that Stupid Response again, the people of Haiti were blamed for their own misfortunes. As though their LEADERS had actually been empowered by popular vote instead of installed, against the expressed will of the People, by and for the profit of American Corporate Hegemony. Alternating with French Hegemony until the AmeriCorp bought out the French. We broke it, we supposedly bought it, right? That's the one of the irRationale for staying in Iraq and Afghanistan. (rationale is both plural and single, I checked, you didn't, kiss off) Of course, it's not the American Corporations who are Paying the bills "we" ran up by breaking all the pottery, although they seem to be getting quite a lot of public funding to manipulate the Public Army and the Public intelligence community and the public "rebuilding" campaign, which mostly consists of taking very expensive videos and photographs of Other People moving the shards around. Much the same way they're paid to watch and take pictures while other people bury the Dead "shards" in Haiti. Through public funding for their private "efforts". Some have seen fit to criticize my frequent use of Capitalization and italics and bold type and ComBinatiOns Of tHem but some people need a little help finding juicy nuggets amidst the kibble. Both are Nourishing Mind Food but the juicy bits are more fun. Sometimes. Some of the people have difficulty seeing, which is a condition with which I can easily relate. Others are just kind of inured to reading and hearing Bullshit from the likes of Glenn Beck and need a little help finding emphasis in NORMAL thoughts. It's not that Glenn Beck is mentally defective, it's what he's paid to say, in the Corporate anticipation of the Audience being mentally defective. In a way, though, the situation in Ethiopia and Haiti is the same case, revisited. "Conservative" (their own code word for Racist Right Wing Extremists) Pundits insist that black people are incapable of governing themselves so it's up to the Great White Father in Washington to guide and assist and let's face it, outright Rule Over the poor little darkie savages. But Ethiopia has for several occasions been the richest nation on earth and in cumulative time they managed to do it for longer than the Americas have actually experienced European Rule. Intermittently because the times Ethiopia has been devastatingly poor have been periods of colonial rule. Like the Romans exacting tribute from them, and in the past couple of centuries European and European-American Corporate Rule turning Their nation into Our plantation. Same with Haiti. When the U.S. went to war with Hawaii and deposed their "tyrannical"
Dit Fromage!
Ah, photography and cheese, together again. In French. New concept, Calendar Girls posing with ... CHEESE! It doesn't translate very well, culturally, or didn't. "Say Cheese" becomes "Dit Fromage! Dit Fromage!" Warning, the webpage is in French. So for those right wing types who are still pissed off at the French for not just allowing McDonalds to take over their country... Too bad. You lost, EU won, get over it. So the French have taken up the American bastardization of what was French technology in the first place, photography. Maybe now the Americans will take up something more than a mere shadow of French raw milk cheese. Instead of cheese made from Pasteurized milk. Which doesn't make too much sense, since cheese is rotten milk in its beginning, why Pasteurize out the bacteria and fungi which make it if you're just going to put them back later? You know, that was the "beef" McDonalds AND the Texas Cattle Raisers and Breeders Association had with them? Not so much a really well-deserved bit of Anti-American cultural snobbery. But the French and everybody else in the EU demanded (How DARE those Foreign Sovereign Nations make demands of American CorporaFascist Rulers about doing business in their pipsqueak country which has been a nation for a thousand years longer than America?) that the milk and meat served come from EU inspected sources. That would include having EU approved inspections in "our" Meat Factory mass-produced Concentrated Animal Feeding Enterprises. Which are themselves a spectacularly bad idea and once (hopefully) American politicians grow enough balls to shut them the Hell down, it'll be a toxic waste disposal operation. In fact it already is. In a grim bit of Karma, the boson (very large aquifer) under the Permian Basin (where the Bush family has some really deep oil and gas wells that go BELOW the water level of the boson and where Bush has his ranch, now for sale, directly in the middle of the Permian Basin at Crawford) now has traces of the antibiotics from the CAFE raised animals in it. This boson is called "fossil" water because it's been developing ever since the Permian Basin was under a shallow sea, which hasn't been for the past 63 million years or so. Now the boson (until they fractured the rock above and to the side of it drilling for oil) HAD been feeding from water which took 10,000 years to percolate down through the limestone. Carbon filtering done Right, man. So people from the east slope of the Rockies, as far north as southern Kansas and as far westEAST (damn that was sloppy) as at least the Dallas area are paying extra for filtration and purification of what used to be the purest source of fresh water in America. So we don't have to drink the Bush family bullshit. Literally. The French and most of the rest of the EU didn't want any part of that kind of destruction visited on their people for the sake of
Scam auction site Swipebids poses French celebrity Melissa Theuriau as generic newsperson all over the web
Penny auction scammers know their audience. Stupid Americans aren't going to recognize one phony news reporter over another, even if it's French anchorwoman Melissa Theuriau. Imagine if Lisa Hartman's misnamed image popped up in embedded advertorials. Not only are fake "penny auction" news pages posing the A-list celebrity as a generic TV spokesperson, but ads have been placed across the internet, on authentic media like MSNBC. Certainly the banner ad managers of MSM websites know that Theuriau is not shilling for penny auction scammers.
De Gaulle urges resistance in occupied France, Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan
June 18 marked the 70th anniversary of the Free-French General de Gaulle's famous 1940 radio address when he urged occupied France to resist because victory over their invaders would be inevitable. Does the western media commemorate de Gaulle's message without an inkling of irony? Of course, today's occupied peoples cannot be offered the same assurance, that help is on its way. Just as Europe was overwhelmed by Hitler's superior force, de Gaulle knew that US industry would trump that. There will be no white knight to rescue Iraq and Afghanistan, but "L'Appel du 18 Juin," celebrated in 2010, reaffirms every people's right to resist foreign invaders. And not nonviolently. General Petain, leader of France's Vichy government, was forever condemned for surrendering France and collaborating with the Germans. But he too knew that US industrial might, and its unlimited resources, ensured an allied victory. Petain can be thanked for sparing French cities the excessive ravages of war. Most of France's historical architecture survived WWII because Petain played along with the occupiers. But France is free today thanks to the resistance.
Louvre knows art from food from rot
A little birdie traveler confirms the recently reported outrage about a McDonalds franchise in the Louvre. The good news: McDs was not permitted to adjoin the international food court where concessioners serve varieties of real meals. Instead the Happy Meals are consigned to the end of a long hallway, without advantage of a sign, except for the signature yellow arches to show the way. Familiar also will be the width of the fast food estuary, to accommodate the distinctly un-European girths of American patriots jonesing for their poison fix.
Mondovino: globalization and terroir, Robert Parker versus your good taste
For those with a curiosity for how wine terroir is holding up against the onslaught of wine factory farming, the 10-hour miniseries version of MONDOVINO is finally available on DVD. For viewers curious about viniculture globalization under Californian colonial domination, the original feature length documentary delivers, with a long finish. Any time critics accuse a film of being one sided, you know it's about class war. I had my first lesson in vineyard terroir when my college-aged aunt visited my family in Alsace and spent a season picking grapes. She informed us to our horreur that everything gets stomped in that barrel, bugs and all. I didn't drink wine then, so what did I care, but it was easy to decide that such was the artistry that probably made French wines great. But as I said, Mondovino was about much more than wine, and now I'll get to the point. We may lament the new commercialization of wine, but historically the occupation has always had its strictly-business types. Vintners were rarely agriculturalists who subsisted, they were wine lovers subsidized. We can wince at the Napa Valley nouveau gauche, but even Bordeaux's great chateaus, and especially all the Premiers Crus, are owned and have been owned by businessmen money lenders, going back centuries. The modernization and standardization which is destroying contemporary wines is simply the evolution of production control. At last, technology and the ascent of a gilded age have brought vintners to believe they've bested nature. It's true if you don't care about wine, if you're content to bottle a soft drink as opposed to allowing wine the breathing space to develop personality. Basically this documentary demonstrates that these gentlemen hobbyists, now plaintively bourgeois about profit, welcome the new global fascism. Old World Fascists Of course it is no stretch to imagine that the Mondovino filmmakers are going to ask, how did your father or grandfather like Fascism under the Nazis? They point the question at an Italian family who date their wealth back 900 years as bankers. Any European documentary delving into family histories will always ask particularly about the war years. In America it's what did you do during the war Daddy? In Europe it's about weathering the occupation. Most working class French want to tell you what they did in the Resistance. Rich people you don't ask because of course they were collaborateurs. Mondovino's subjects are the perpetually wealthy, who don't even register the affront. Of course their families thrived under Fascism, quelle betise to imagine it would be otherwise. How curious it is we are surprised they embrace it so again. Such moments are the highlights of Mondovino, rich folk posing in elaborate foyers, plaintively matter of fact about Fascism. One opulent reception room in Florence is packed with ancient paintings, among them a painting of the very room full of paintings, you imagine if you peered closely enough you would see the infinity of mirrors scheme, a Baroque era black velvet number. The Grande Dame mentions that Prince Charles inquired about
US govt spreads terror to Yemen
Hundreds of thousands of new refugees and yet another country, Yemen, is now being destabilized by the US's relentless drive to control the Middle East's oil resources. Yemen is not oil rich but sits in a strategic locale between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and Iran and the Horn of Africa (Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Kenya). That makes it a key battle zone (like Lebanon and Syria to the West) in US efforts to destabilize and topple the current Iranian government in order to replace it with a servile puppet regime under US government control. If you hear anything about this new outbreak of fighting, it will be described by the corporate media as being nothing but a battle between Yemen government forces allied with US ally, Saudi Arabia, and Northern Shia Houtha rebels allied with Iran. No hint beyond that of this civil war being part of anything much larger in size. No hint of US government involvement in the hostilities. Hiding in the shadows though, is the US government and their traditional European allies, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, and so on. This is just one more front line in their neo-imperial expansionism, and thus Yemen joins Pakistan joins Lebanon joins Gaza. The direct casualties of these imperialist wars by the US government and the Pentagon can be seen in this film, and make up, as usual, many very innocent civilians, including many small children. Barack Obama doesn't care though. These children victims of US government war making live far away and are quite defenseless. Out of sight out of mind to the Big Shots in D.C. See Yemenis flee to Saudi border - a film from Al Jazeera for a snapshot picture of the new conflict.
Top 10 Westerns, if you ask the French
Are you a fan of the American Western? How do you think your taste might match a survey of French film critics? Though we mock their high regard for Jerry Lewis, let's allow that France has a film history that predates ours, and a legacy of critical journals beyond the reach of our Hollywood shills. Besides which, the golden age of the movie western lies well between the brothers Lumiére and the Nouvelle Vague. Perusing John Cawelti's The Six-Gun Mystique published in 1976, I found a list of the TOP TEN GREATEST WESTERNS. Think any of your favorites made the list? Your odds improve because ties were listed as individual ranks, so the entire top ten comprises almost 100 titles. The survey excludes works made after the early seventies obviously. TOP TEN WESTERNS 1. Johnny Guitar -- Nicholas Ray 2. Rio Bravo -- Howard Hawks 3. The Big Sky -- Howard Hawks, w. AB Guthrie 4. (tie) The Naked Spur -- Anthony Mann Rancho Notorious -- Fritz Lang Man Without a Star -- King Vidor 5. (tie) My Darling Clementine -- John Ford The Left-Handed Gun -- Arthur Penn, w. Gore Vidal The Searchers --John Ford Ride the High County -- Sam Peckenpah 6. (tie) Silver Lode -- Allan Dwan Red River -- Howard Hawks Duel in the Sun -- King Vidor The Hanging Tree -- Delmer Daves Run of the Arrow -- Sam Fuller Seven Men From Now -- Budd Boetticher 7. (tie) The Last Hunt -- Richard Brooks The Far Country -- Anthony Mann Colorado Territory -- Raoul Walsh Wagonmaster --John Ford The Unforgiven -- John Huston Man of the West -- Anthony Mann Heller in Pink Tights -- George Cukor, w. Louis L'Amour 8. (tie) Man From Laramie -- Anthony Mann The Plainsman -- Cecil B. DeMille Western Union -- Fritz Lang Winchester 73 -- Anthony Mann Warlock -- Edward Dmytryk They Died with their Boots On -- Raoul Walsh The Last Frontier -- Anthony Mann The Last Wagon -- Delmer Daves River of No Return -- Otto Preminger 9. (tie) Stagecoach -- John Ford, w. Ernest Haycock The Outlaw -- Howard Hughes, w. Ben Hecht Billy the Kid -- King Vidor Comanche Station -- Budd Boetticher The Wonderful Country -- Robert Parrish, w. Tom Lea Wichita -- Jacques Tourneur 3:10 to Yuma -- Delmer Daves, w. Elmore Leonard The Magnificent Seven -- John Sturges, w. Akira Kurosawa Gunfight at the OK Corral -- John Sturges, w. Leon Uris Tennessee's Partner -- Allan Dwan, w. Bret Harte 10. (Another 45 titles, including) Shane -- George Stevens The Misfits -- John Huston, w. Arthur Miller Major Dundee -- Sam Peckinpah One Eyed Jacks -- Marlon Brando The Treasure of the Sierra Madre -- John Huston, w. B. Traven The Gold Rush -- Charlie Chaplin Go West -- Buster Keaton Fort Bravo -- John Sturges
Reenacting wars of colonial imperialism
COLORADO SPRINGS, 1776. District 12 elementary school 5th graders reenacted a couple Revolutionary War battles, where the heretofore unstoppable Red Coats fought in vain to crush the American insurgency. Aided by Awakening Councils of British Loyalists, the English troops threw overwhelming force against Colonial militias who would not fight fair. Comprised mainly of army irregulars, dressed often as ordinary civilians, because they were, the "American" rebels would not renounce terrorist tactics, human shields and unconventional warfare. British soldiers were conscripted from among the families who could afford neither education or apprenticeships to the skilled trades. Whereas their Tory collaborator were from the colonies' wealthy landowners. The British armies represented a coalition from client states of the empire, such as the Scottish Highlanders. These occupation forces supplemented their number with private contractor mercenaries, the professionally equipped, widely despised Hessians. The Continental insurgency was accused of including foreign fighters. British military superiority was overwhelming, wherever they concentrated their forces, the rebels withdrew. But there were never enough British soldiers deployed to hold the entire countryside. The American Freedom Fighters were assisted by France, home of "French Fries," later called "Freedom Fries," and the Statue of Liberty. After eight long years of far flung military engagements, incurring an insurmountable national debt, the English conceded victory to the separatists in what became known as the American War of Independence. EPILOG: Playing the heavy in a reenactment of the US patriotic struggle against British occupation, was not so bad as playing a turncoat. Most Americans look back and picture themselves having been Lexington Minutemen, or Kentucky Rangers or Continental Marines, but many of our forefathers fought against the patriots. The more ignoble among the collaborators were: Simcoe's Queen's Rangers, the Loyal Irish Volunteers, the New Jersey Volunteers, Brant's Volunteers, Butler's Rangers, Caldwell's Company, Docksteader’s Rangers, DeLancey’s Brigade, Brewerton's Company, the King’s Royal Regiment, the Loyal American Regiment, the Royal American Volunteers, the Queen’s Rangers, and Tarleton’s British Legion. POSTSCRIPT: Reports of atrocities were dismissed as enemy propaganda. Evidence emerges later of what happens when infantry are left to their own initiative. Witness: stretcher-bearers and wounded come upon a British patrol coming off the lunch-hour, and are put to the bayonet.
Next to the White House
While visiting Washington DC in March, I found it interesting to note the edifices closest to the White House. EAST, WEST The neighbor to the immediate East of the Obama's White House is the Department of the Treasury. Is that any surprise? Of course not, but how bourgeois! I could imagine Scrooge McDuck sneaking across the White House garden twice a day to check his reserves. To the West is what we now call the Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building. It's the site of the suspicious office fires which may or may not have masked a recent vice-president's misdeeds. The edifice looks straight out of A Series of Unfortunate Events, and check out the plaque which commemorates what the building used to be called: Probably that should be no surprise as well: the White house sandwiched between Treasury and War. "State, War and Navy." How so much less duplicitous than the "Department of Defense." SOUTHWEST Behind the former War offices, to the Southwest of the White House, lies the war memorial to end all war memorials. It's the WWI Memorial, of considerably diminutive size compared to those commemorations of subsequent wars which have spilled unto the Mall, but its form followed the convention of the typical Great War monuments erected throughout Europe among the nations who had participated. Except the American version is dedicated to the "Expeditionary Forces" which I just love. That's what WWI was about for the US. The trenches of Europe were no place Americans needed to defend their freedom. The troops we sent, to relieve France and England, represented a foreign expedition, exactly that. More precisely, our troops were an R&D expedition for our blustering capitalists. (This may be no time or place to note that history books do not link America's WWI experience with the Influenza outbreak of 1917-18, which began in the barracks of US soldiers being mobilized for war. American soldiers took their flu to Europe and ultimately killed 50 million people. Those were not the days before we knew better to stay home to prevent infecting others.) The US entry into WWI was bitterly opposed by a peace movement which the war-opportunist-profiteers maligned as isolationist. Selfish globalization-denying isolationism has been the slander ever since, used against anyone who tries to block military interventions in all their guises. Ultimately WWI was no affair of ours, had the Huns emerged victorious, American foreign affairs would hardly have changed. Our foreign trading partners would have numbered more Germans, that's all. But it's useless to compare alternative outcomes of WWI, all things staying constant, because America participated and profited wildly. If American investors had not jumped in Over There, the greatest business opportunities of blossoming industrialism would have been missed. The opportunities offered by the Europeans fighting amongst themselves, proved to have been momentous. And here was the monument to those lost American lives, sacrificed so that American industrial might, in particular the new banking monopolists, could seize the European spheres of influence throughout the world. Of course the lost lives
Must Arabs Recognize Israel as a Jewish State? Or must we, for that matter?
'NETANYAHU’S DEMAND that the Palestinians recognize Israel as “the State of the Jewish People” is ridiculous, even as a tactic for preventing peace. A state recognizes a state, not its ideology or political regime. Nobody recognizes Saudi Arabia, the homeland of the Hajj, as “the State of the Muslim Umma” (the community of believers).' Thus speaks Uri Avnery, and he continues: 'Moreover, the demand puts the Jews all over the world in an impossible position. If the Palestinians have to recognize Israel as “the State of the Jewish People”, then all the governments in the world must do the same. The United States, for example. That means that the Jewish US citizens Rahm Emmanuel and David Axelrod, Obama’s closest advisors, are officially represented by the government of Israel. The same goes for the Jews in Russia, the UK and France.' Yes, Uri is right. The 'Jewish State' demands more for itself than even the Catholic Church does of its minions. The Catholic Church interjects itself into the affairs of multiple countries throughout the world and the nominally secular 'Jewish State' follows along copying the Pope with its own demands for special 'recognition'. Then, of course, there are the Muslims who want their own laws to be applied equally to everybody, including everybody else! But the 'Jewish State' is more immature and more unformed. It lusts to enlarge the boundaries of where the Jewish State law shall be dominant. It lusts for more territory! It resents the establishment previously of multiple and large Christian States and Muslim States and is like a Germany that lusted once for colonial lands of its own control like England, France, and Spain once had had. 'Even if Mahmoud Abbas were persuaded to accept this demand – and thereby indirectly put in doubt the citizenship of a million and a half Arabs in Israel – I would oppose this strenuously. More than that, I would consider it an unfriendly act.' Why, Uri? Is it because Religion mandated states ultimately apply their harsh laws against their own supposed members? Is it, Uri, because as a Jewish person you don't even want to live in that Jewish State? See full article Netanyahu's Plan by URI AVNERY. And why is Barack Obama keeping the US government signed onto recognizing Israel as a privileged Jewish State rather than a multinational country with equal rights for all? Why is Barack Obama hobnobbing so much with Christian Zionists, too, who believe in maintaining a militaristic Christian Empire centered in the US? Why is Barack Obama continuing the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?
ANZAC
I was going to do a short teach-in at the EcoFair today, (along with selling my Eco Jewelry) but i've got a mucked up arm. More on that later. Short story, I didn't go. But today was also ANZAC Day, sort of an Australian, Canadian and New Zealand version of Veterans Day. Veterans day here commemorates the end of the war. ANZAC day is the first engagement by Australian and NZ troops under Aussie and NZ officers (also Canadian and Irish) at a place called Suvla Sud al Bar at Gallipoli... against the Turks. To put it mildly, it was a straight up fuck-job. They got mauled. So did the Turks, because that's what war is all about. The British Army had decided to put the "colonials" into the fight right there... With an amphibious invasion. One which they quickly learned they didn't know how to run. That was the guys at the top, like Winston Churchill. He resigned his command and took a field posting. Remorse, yes, shame, yes... didn't bring back the kids who were, as the song says "in five minutes flat, we were all blown to Hell, Nearly blew us back home to Australia. But the band played "Waltzing Matilda" As we stopped To bury our slain We buried ours, and the Turks buried theirs... Then we started all over again and some of them were kids. The oldest surviving ANZAC died in 2002, while the Liberation Violent Takeover of Afghanistan was going on. He was 102. When he joined the Australia-New Zealand Auxilary Corps of the British Army he was 14. He was 15 when he went to Gallipoli. Some of our Young Friends who say we unnecessarily pick on the Devilpups and Young Marines and JROTC and Boy Scouts, which ranch-raise the kids to become Cannon Fodder, should contemplate that. Their leaders will probably wire them up to call us Hate Speech Propagandists for pointing that out. Screw their leaders. I was going to sing the songs "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" "Gallipoli" and "Green Fields o' France" and play the pipes lowly, actually my flute, and sing it too, Flowers o' the Forest. I've seen the smilin' of Fortune beguiling I've witnessed her pleasure an' found her decay... Sweet was it's blessing Kind it's caressing But now 'tis fled, tis fled.. Far away... I've seen the forest adorned in the foremost wi' the flowers o' the forest most pleasant and gay. Sae bonnie was their bloomin' their scent, the air perfumin' but now they are withered, an' a' wae'ed away... I've seen the mornin' wi' gold the hills adornin' The dread tempest formin' before parting day... I've seen tweed silver streams Glitterin' in the sunny beams. Grow drownly an' dark as they Rolled on their way. O, Fickle Fortune! Why such cruel sportin' an' why thus perplex us poor sons of the day? Thy frown cannot fear me Thy smiles cannot cheer me... For the Flowers o' the Forest are all wae'ed away.... At the end of "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda" and the old men still answer the call... But as year follows year more old men disappear... Someday no one will march there At all Waltzing Matilda, Waltzin' Matilda you'll go a-waltzin' Matilda with me. An' their ghosts may still be heard as ye march by that billabong... Who'll go a-waltzin' Matilda wi' me... Waltzing Matilda is the unofficial national anthem of Oz-land. The
One man’s Guerrier, another’s Terroriste
WELL LOOKY WHAT I FOUND! Published in France just after the war, this book is about "LES TERRORISTES." Can you tell by the cover art, who play the title role? USA POST-2001: America designates its war zone detainees as EPWs, or "Enemy Prisoners of War," because to call them POWs would confuse public sympathies. To the average American, "P.O.W." commemorates the GI captivity experience in Vietnam or Korea. When a soldier of ours is caught, that's a POW. To grant both sides equal status would be to humanize our enemy. Of course, POW used to mean all "Prisoners Of War," ours and theirs, in WWII days, before, and as mentioned in all international conventions. We label the people of Iraq or Afghanistan who resist our occupation, as insurgents. Be they Bathists or Taliban, we call their cause an insurgency, not a resistance, because that would confuse American public affection for the French Resistance: La Resistance! Every nation in Occupied Europe had a resistance movement, and the WWII archetypes are still fresh. Occupiers equal Germans. Collaborators equal cowards, traitors, Qwislings, Vichy. Resistance fighters equal the heroes. Since then, American occupations, of postwar France for example, have avoided mention of their assigned task. In Germany and Japan, US soldiers are merely "stationed" there. In countries which we've invaded, like Vietnam, Americans denied being the despised occupiers, we were advisors, protectors, etc. And the populations who opposed our military administration were insurgents, and if they attacked us by unconventional means, they were terrorists! In Iraq as well as Afghanistan, the American spectator can discern that al-Qaeda has been the only named terrorist organization, yet Sunni, Shiite, and Taliban fighters are all called terrorists. Militant Islam is considered terrorist, Hezbollah and Hamas liberation movements are called terrorist, even the Somali pirate brigands are being condemned as terrorists. So who were "Les Terroristes" of Occupied France? The book cover heeds us to "Souvenais-vous!" Never forget them. The book is full of their pictures and accounts of their brave deeds. Most of them fell to the Nazis, to firing squads and Gestapo tortures. The brave Terroristes were the scourge of the German Occupation, rooted out and almost eradicated before the last year of the war. The Nazis called them "terrorists," they were LA RESISTANCE!
Singing a song of angry men
Do you hear the people sing, singing a song of angry men? It is the music of a people who will not be slaves again. When the beating of your heart echoes the beating of the drums, There is a life about to start when tomorrow comes. If you search online for Les Miserables lyrics, strangely you find only the first stanza of DO YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING, repeated three times. The other refrains are in the Finale. Have a read. Have Gandhi or Mandela or MLK or His Holiness the Dalai Lama, delivered anyone yet from impoverished misery, persecution, or captive servitude to the idle rich? When you want to put your fate into your own hands, maybe it's going to take guts. Do you hear the people sing, singing a song of angry men? It is the music of a people who will not be slaves again! When the beating of your heart echoes the beating of the drums, There is a life about to start when tomorrow comes! Will you join in our crusade? Who will be strong and stand with me? Beyond the barricade is there a world you long to see? Then join in the fight that will give you the right to be free! Do you hear the people sing, singing a song of angry men? It is the music of a people who will not be slaves again! When the beating of your heart echoes the beating of the drums There is a life about to start when tomorrow comes! Will you give all you can give so that our banner may advance? Some will fall and some will live, will you stand up and take your chance? The blood of the martyrs will water the meadows of France! Do you hear the people sing, lost in the valley of the night? It is the music of a people who are climbing to the light. Oer the wretched of the Earth there is a flame than never dies. Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise. They will live again in freedom in the garden of the Lord. They will walk behind the plowshare, they will put away the sword. The chain will be broken and all men will have their reward. Will you join in our crusade? Who will be strong and stand with me? Somewhere beyond the barricade is there a world you long to see? Do you hear the people sing? Say do you hear the distant drums? It is the future that they bring when tomorrow comes.
Black Pirates meted Southern Justice
Dutch NATO forces rescued 20 hostages off the coast of Africa last week without loss of life. They thwarted a pirate attack, confiscated the booty, but must release the captured pirates owing to International Maritime Law. Contrast this with American cowboy rules of engagement. Several US Navy warships faced a solitary lifeboat on which three teenage Somali pirated held hostage Maersk Alabama captain Richard Phillips. The covered lifeboat remained tethered to the stern of one of the Navy ships while negotiations, we're told, progressed. Going into day three, before the American TV audience could lose interest, US Navy Seals rescued the captive Phillips at a cost of a 100% casualty rate to the pirates. Although the DoD did not initially want to reveal its anti-pirate tactics, spokesmen have admitted that the "daring rescue" was in effect three precisely-simultaneous sniper shots to the heads of the three captors. The fourth pirate already having been entrusted to the US ship's custody for medical care. The captain freed, the wounded pirate's collateral was thus gone, and his grant of safe-passage was rescinded. The official story is that US infrared imagery revealed that the American captive's life was in danger. One of the pirates was holding a gun to his head, and this act prompted the snipers to intervene. Negotiations, apparently, were not proving fruitful. I'm guessing that this account reflects the exact opposite of what happened. The navy snipers had been holding their fire until the moment Captain Phillip was NOT in a pirate's crosshairs. Although the Somali pirates were just teens, I bet they knew from brutal experience, what most of us know from violent television, that holding your gun to a hostage's head is the only way to prevent your rivals from gunning you down. Trapped in a lifeboat, the pirates knew that high powered US weaponry would be trained upon each of their heat silhouettes. The moment their captive was not in the predicted trajectory of the crossfire, nor threatened by a collateral death-spasm squeeze of a trigger, the pirates would be toast. The rescue operation began with a greater-than-three number of US snipers aiming weapons at the little boat. The more the better, to assure that at every instant, complicated by the rocking and turning of the lifeboat in the waves, at least one sniper could claim one pirate, without the hostage laying vulnerable to leeward bullets. The images in the sniper scopes were wired to a director's console, where the determination could be made when all three targets were spoken for, and the order could be given to fire. The last hurdle remained for the pirate who held his gun on the hostage to drop his guard for just an instant, lest he squeeze off a round into the hostage. Wanna bet that's what happened? Great marksmanship, no question. Plenty of training no doubt. We can take nothing away from the heroism shown in braving responsibility for jeopardizing Captain Phillip's life. It is probably also a common law
Capitalism is Organized Crime
From A.N.S.W.E.R.: --Capitalism is a form of organized crime. The U.S. government is greasing the system's wheels to ensure that banks and big corporations get trillions in bailout funds. Meanwhile, millions of workers are losing their jobs and homes. Deep cuts are gutting public education, making health care even less accessible and decimating much-needed social programs. Police brutality and racial profiling are rampant. Working-class people are being hit from all sides. The conference will link the struggles against war and militarism with the fight for economic justice. This conference will be an important opportunity for political activists to meet, analyze, discuss and propose solutions. The conference organizers believe that a radical reorganization of society is necessary to meet the needs of the people rather than to maximize the profits of bankers and corporate executives who have driven society onto the path of endless war and economic suffering. Featured speakers at the April 19th Conference will include: Marcos García, Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Brian Becker, Hodari Abdul-Ali, Eugene Puryear, Prof. Zachary Wolfe, Maurice Carney, Muna Coobtee, Frances Villar, James Circello, and Crystal Kim.
More on the Dow-Monsanto-Daddy Warbucks connection…
on another forum the point was raised that acknowledging their guilt and paying for the blood they shed wouldn't be practical in todays economy. BUT It's not government money being discussed. In fact, although Monsanto and Dow got huge sums of (Billions of) WarBux off the Taxpayer, they also got every tax break imaginable. Capital gains tax? weeeelllll now, we got us some fancy-nancy accountants that'll prove beyond any doubt that Capital Gains isn't actual income, even though it does put more money in our bank accounts... Of course the Tax Rebellion people will chime in with how it would be Stealing to have the Daddy Warbucks types pay back a proportionate amount to what they steal from the people with their War-mongering. They make money off the Deaths of Americans and whoever the Enemy-du-jour is. It's about the sickest possible relationship there is. They get the money, our "class" gets lined up and mown down like grass... Bleeding screaming grass... Every now and then I have to refresh the memory of what the whole schtick with Little Orphan Annie was. "Daddy" Warbucks got his surname because he was one of the Profiteers from World War One. Like the ones who made 5 helmets for every doughboy. 7 pairs of boots bought for each soldier. Then the Punks bought back all the shit they sold to the Army, at pennies on the dollar, and resold it for another profit as scrap. Some of it, the Army paid them to haul away. They literally forced the Soldiers to take half their pay in War Bonds and then shamed them into buying more War Bonds. Then in the Inter-Bellum the War Bonds tanked, the Daddy Warbucks "people" bought them off the suddenly destitute ex-soldiers at 72 cents on the dollar of their face value, then sold them back to the government at 110%, in a deal much like the Bush Bailout. See, this is the kind of stuff you learn at the VFW. VFW and American Legion got a huge kick-start when they had protest marches in Washing Tundy Sea, on the issue of bonuses they were promised when they were sent off to France to be Cannon Fodder. Until they were fired on by... their fellow American Soldiers. The Tax Warriors like to whine about the "raw deal" Herbert Hoover was cut by history. Screw that. The man ordered American soldiers to fire on American Soldiers. MacArthur gladly obliged. No heroes anywhere in that pair of Jacks. But they both died rich with Some Really Foolish People worshiping them as though they were heroes. Daddy Warbucks of cartoon fame semi-adopted a 10 year old orphan girl with big empty eyes. It doesn't take much to see a really sick relationship there. Making money off death, what other moral depravity even comes close? They were the ones screaming, like the Tax Warriors of today, about "Redistribution of Wealth" and "Class Warfare" when Roosevelt made them pay PART of what they really owed. They cheerfully redistributed the Wealth of the Nation to their own nasty slop-trough... and they gladly made war on the Lower Class. It's not hard to see which way the
Bible Code, Redux
So, it was on again today. And this time, thanx to all the Mossad, Knesset and IDF name dropping that's been going on, courtesy of our Trolls... Some of the names were eerily familiar. People in Netanyahu's Koalition of the Killing government with his 22% "majority mandate". Nut Job after Nut Job saying how wonderful the Bible Code works, citing events they 'discovered" in the code ... after they happened of course... And even a couple of Pentagoons and yeah, Troll, I know you think you have a handle on accuracy but I call the PentaGoons that deliberately. Our Army is at least in their leadership every bit as thuggish and murderous as IDF. It makes it difficult to tell which is the Master and which the Disciple in their Sick Sadistic relationship. But the theme comes out, they want to take the so-called Proven Accuracy of their decoding of the Talmudic Matrix, and use it as Legitimate Foreign Policy. And apparently, these demented Freaks actually have backing from some shadowy types from OUR government. Let's boil that down, shall we? Why thank you, of course we shall. There's a politically backed movement to base Life and Death decisions, active in TWO Nuclear Armed governments, On a Glorified Seance. An Ouija Board. Reading Tea Leaves. The show was taped in 2004. The people interviewed saying how much they would love to actually influence Official Policy both in Washington and Tel Aviv, are now close to the hearts of both governments. One of the "ACCURATE" predictions involved the Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. You know the ones, the 500 metric tonnes (that's more than a MILLION pounds, folks) of WMDs that it turns out didn't exist in the first place. OOOPS.... Apparently the Code didn't predict that disastrous misstep. Or the bit about the Syrians and Lebanese running the IDF out one more time when they invaded Lebanon again. Just like the IDF got run out in 85. Well well well well well... But one thing predicted during the show, and welcomed with Loud Hosannahs from the Silly Ass proponents of the Bible Code, was the notion of WMDs in Iran... I know the Country Song says the writer is too stupid to be able to tell the difference between Iraq and Iran. Probably can't tell the difference between the U.S. and Mexico or Russian and China or Germany and France either. Bigots are like that... But for those terminally confused types, that's IRAN spelled with an "N" on the end of it and with nearly 4 times the prewar population of IRAQ spelled with a "Q" or alternately IRAK spelled with a "K". Remember always, gentle readers, and forget never, that these are the SAME "experts" that George Bush hired to give intelligent intelligence reports about Uranium, anthrax, Smallpox, Mousepox, Nerve Gas... In Iraq 6 years ago. In other words, Lying Warmongering Sell-outs to God and the Whole Human Race. Since both Washington and IDF still have prisoners in Torture Chambers across the globe being tortured and Murdered based on these DumbShit's "expert testimony"... That would cast a rather large shadow on every other aspect of their Continuing Terroristic War
Eric Holder, ‘First Black’ or just another reactionary appointee by Barack Obama?
Another Black Face to cover up the reactionary government of Barack Obama, Eric Holder has just been appointed US Attorney General. He was Clinton's Deputy Attorney General after Clinton picked him up from Ronald Reagan's team where he was one of Ronnie's appointed judges. He also was part of the George Bush Senior team as well. According to the Washington Post, Holder obtained his 'critical support from a broad base of federal and state law enforcement groups as well as a bipartisan coalition of former Justice Department leaders, including one time deputy attorney general James B. Comey, former FBI director Louis J. Freeh and President George W. Bush's terrorism and homeland security adviser Frances Fragos Townsend.' Here he is talking in an interview 12 years ago in an interview with BNET Business Network... Insight: What did you do to change the wave of violence that has overwhelmed the nation's capital? Eric Holder: I have taken a lot of grief for my attempt to make selling marijuana a felony in the district (Wash D.C.), not just a misdemeanor. I introduced the legislation in December that would make distribution and possession with the intent to distribute marijuana a five-year felony. I've been criticized for it by reporters in various publications, saying things like I have "reefer madness." But what we found was that in 1991 about 11 percent of all juveniles who were arrested in the district tested positive for drugs. In 1996, we found that 62 percent of those who were arrested were now testing positive for drug use and that it was largely marijuana. And that is something we can change. Hearings are scheduled for April and I am hoping that we have enough support to push it through. (from A new sheriff at Justice) As current Steering Committee member of The George Washington University's Homeland Security Policy Institute, Holder's Black face will be seen as a key component of the effort by Barack Obama to convince the world that the illegality of the Bush Klan has come to a halt. But look at the policy statements, the links, and the structure of the Homeland Security Policy Institute (HSPI) and you see clearly that Holder will be nothing more nor less than a continuation by Obama of ex-President George Dubya Bush's so-called 'Global War on Terrorism' (GWOT) agenda. Minus Guantanamo perhaps?, but still with injustice for all. Eric Holder is nothing more than just another reactionary appointee by Barack Obama and a corporate lawyer (Covington & Burling LLP) whose presence will change very little.
NO TO NATO Protest 2009
A No to NATO Protest 2009 is being organized in Strasbourg, France, but where is the US Antiwar Movement? A similar protest against NATO should and could be built on the same date in Washington DC at the Pentagon, so why does the American Antiwar Community always give NATO a free ride? Look below at the organizing committee for the Strasbourg event and notice how the US antiwar Community is simply MIA. That's very sad... No to NATO Protest Saturday 4th April 2009 - Sunday 5th April 2009 Details to be confirmed.................................................. A protest is being organised outside the NATO conference in Strasbourg, France marking the 60th anniversary of NATO. Sixty years of NATO are enough. NATO is the main driving force behind global war. NATO stands for the missile defense system, military bases around the world, nuclear weapons and military interventions and expenditure. NATO is a rival to the UN and the system of international law, and it is intertwined with the European security and defense system. But NATO is not all-powerful, indeed it is under extreme pressure right now in Afghanistan. Members of the open preparation committee for the protest at the 60th anniversary of NATO include: Arielle Denis (Le Mouvement de la Paix, France) Reiner Braun (IALANA, speaker of Cooperation for Peace, Germany) Chris Nineham (Stop the War Coalition, UK) Tobias Pflüger (MEP, IMI, Germany) Thomas Magnusson (International Peace Bureau, Sweden) Sotiris Kontogiannis (Stop the War Coalition, Greece) Elaheh Rostami Povey (Stop the War Coalition, UK/Iran) Peter Strutynski (Federal Committee Peace Council, Germany) International Peace Bureau (IPB) International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility (INES) International Association of Lawyers against Nuclear Arms (IALANA Europe) War Resisters' International International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), Germany Le Mouvement de la Paix, France Stop the War Coalition, Great Britain Stop the War Coalition, Greece Cooperation for Peace, Germany Federal Committee Peace Council, Germany Further details of the NO TO NATO demonstration will be available shortly. To read a briefing on NATO's expansion by Kate Hudson, the chair of CND, click here.